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Apple “Pinch-to-Zoom” Patent Invalid

The patent war rages on with both parties winning and losing lawsuits and obtaining injunctions in various courts across the globe. Apple and Samsung at each other’s throat in court yet they do business with each other, supply essential components to each other for manufacture of devices, and know when to team up in consortiums to finish off sinking rivals as it happened in recent acquisition of kodak’s patents.

The last lawsuit won by Apple that set Samsung back to the tunes of $1.05 billion for the illegal use of iPhone and iPad features on their Galaxy range of devices was mostly hinged on the copy of Apple’s “Pinch-to-Zoom” features. Now that very feature has been shown to be incapable of being patented. Samsung has presented some documents to the U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh showing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office position on this. According to USPTO the technology wasnt deemed “original enough to merit a patent” and each and every one of the 21 claims within the patent were rejected.

For future use of this feature by cellphone manufacturers, this is a good news. However, it is uncertain how it will affect the penalty handed down to Samsung in August this year.

Will Samsung still be required to pay the penalty in full?
Will the judgement be set aside and a re-trial instituted?
Or will the penalty be reduced in the light of this recent findings?

One thing is certain. This year is ending on a very interesting and unpredictable note for the mobile tech industry.